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Northern Hemisphere Temperatures
Name: Greg W.
Status: student
Age: 20s
Location: N/A
Country: N/A
Date: 12/10/2002
Question:
Why does the northern hemisphere, on average, experience
greater extremes in temperature than the southern hemisphere?
Replies:
Greg,
A good place to see temperature extremes is the
National Climatic Data Center (NCDC) site,
lwf.ncdc.noaa.gov/oa/climate/globalextremes.html
On this site, you can see that Antarctica (in the
southern hemisphere) is, by far, colder than any
place in the northern hemisphere, while the highest
temperatures have been recorded in the northern
hemisphere.
In general, the coldest temperatures are recorded near
the poles and/or at high elevations, whereas the
highest temperatures are recorded in deserts and/or
at elevations near or below sea level.
On average, the northern hemisphere may seem to experience
more frequent extremes simply because there are many more
reporting stations than there are in the southern
hemisphere. However, that bias should be ignored when
considering where the most extreme conditions actually
occur.
David R. Cook
Atmospheric Research Section
Environmental Research Division
Argonne National Laboratory
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Update: June 2012
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